


Within Reach

by utsu



Category: Free!
Genre: Drowsy Haru, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Short & Sweet, and resulting drowsy/playful smooches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 01:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4687037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru’s mind flashes back to the way the moonlight sliced through the pool water and lit Rin up like a fragment of a comet, wading through the waters with laughter like the music of the very universe. He remembers pressing him against the wall, breathing in that laughter, swallowing it whole. He remembers the way Rin’s voice had dropped low, low, low; reliving the fall from stars above.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Within Reach

Nanase Haruka curls out of slumber with a slowness reminiscent of glacial passage. He stays in bed for longer, even, than that, simply because he can. His legs are tucked up against his stomach, the cold palm of his hand cupping the slide of his cheek. His mind is a clouded plain; grass blades glistening with dew, the mist of an eerie but peaceful morning. He can feel the heated fingers of sunlight pressing in against his nape, curling around the baby hairs there, welcoming him to another day.

“Haru?”

The voice is quiet, and close, and everything any dream worth having should sound like. He blinks open his eyes, languid and lethargic, turning only enough to rest his chin against his shoulder, glancing over and squinting against the brightness of the sunlight streaming in through his window. He sees red, and red, and red, and he’s smiling before he even realizes he is.

“Rin.”

“Good morning, lazy. Planning on getting up any time soon?”

Haru presses his face back into the cotton of his pillow, humming low in his throat. He inhales the sweet-so-sweet smell of Rin’s conditioner, knows without having to look that he’s woken up on Rin’s side of the bed.

He doesn’t feel embarrassed when he says, “Why don’t you join me instead?”

He peers through his eyelashes; watches the way Rin’s cheeks speckle pink. Rin frowns, lips pursing, and doesn’t hesitate to continue the way he’s been fluttering around the room all morning. Haru lets his eyes fall closed again, tucking the blanket up high enough to just barely conceal his smile.

“Honestly,” he hears Rin mutter, throwing something into a bag. Haru continues to lie there peacefully, listening to Rin move around the place with little care for how loud he is, or how careful. He stubs his toe twice, hissing and hurling veiled insults at the legs of the bed whenever he can. There are a few moments where Haru hears him scrounging around in the bathroom, and for some reason it’s what reminds him of the reason behind Rin’s movements, his insistence.

Time trials. In  _Australia_.

Their flight leaving, probably, soon.

Haru isn’t bothered; he lets Rin continue to fret about packing and continues to listen to him move around the room, comforted by Rin’s mobility, the quiet hums and mumbles when he thinks he’s forgetting something.

Some time later, Haru hears Rin’s steps approach him again. He sees Rin’s shadow cast over him as he walks around to his side of the bed, feels the heat of his breath a second before Rin’s nose nudges gently against the hinge of his jaw.

“Hey, lazy bones,” he whispers, breath pushing Haru’s hair to tickle his cheeks. “We’re gonna be late.”

When Haru doesn’t react as quickly as Rin thinks he ought to have, Rin leans back down and presses his lips to the side of his throat, the softest of kisses.

“If you don’t get up, all the good lanes are gonna get taken.”

Haru blinks his eyes open and yawns, turning with glistening eyes that shine ocean deep until he’s pressing his lips to the side of Rin’s mouth, being gentler and far more patient than he truly wants to be. Rin hums against him, surprised but pleased, and pulls away with a goofy smile.

His eyebrows, though. Haru knows Rin’s disapproving eyebrows when he sees them.

“Yes, yes.” Haru says, head tilting and swaying slightly with the each syllable. He throws the covers off of his body, sits hunched on the edge of the bed and blinks awareness into his sleepy eyes. Rin’s already back over by the bathroom, throwing in a final few necessities he’d apparently missed earlier. Haru glances to the foot of the bed and sees his own bag lying there, full and zipped and perfectly in place.

He can’t help but frown at it, turning to catch Rin’s expectant gaze. Rin shakes his head, holding a delicate finger up in the air.

“Not a word about it,” he says, tone snarky. “I knew you’d be useless this morning. I told you night swimming would tire you out! Did I not tell you that?”

Haru’s mind flashes back to the way the moonlight sliced through the pool water and lit Rin up like a fragment of a comet, wading through the waters with laughter like the music of the very universe. He remembers pressing him against the wall, breathing in that laughter, swallowing it whole. He remembers the way Rin’s voice had dropped low, low, low; reliving the fall from stars above.

He doesn’t say:  _it was worth it._

He doesn’t say: _I’d do it again, a thousand times, a lifetime’s amount of times, until either your shine dissipated or the jagged heated parts of me cooled and dispersed._

He says, instead, “You did tell me.”

Rin gives a curt nod, pleased at being proved right. He stands in the arch in front of the doorway, hands on his hips, smiling at Haru until the latter finally stands from the bed. He heads over to the bathroom, shoulder sliding against Rin’s arm as he passes, saying, “Thank you.”

Rin knows him, well enough to know that he’s thanking him for loading his bag, even when he hadn’t needed to. Rin’s smile loosens, becomes less smug and more content, and he nods.

When Haru comes back from the bathroom, showered, refreshed, and dressed, Rin sits perched on the foot of their bed, fingers intertwined and resting between his knees.

“I enjoyed it,” he says, glancing up at Haru as he towels off the last bits of wetness from his hair. He straightens, his big eyes so full of light and hope and love, staring into the deepest parts of Haru. “I mean, we should do it again. Night swimming.”

He uncurls his form until he’s standing, stretching his hands up towards the ceiling with a beaming grin. The excitement in his eyes is for the near future—the promise of time trials, of being so close to the  _Olympics_ , of getting to be there with Haru at his side.

Haru feels the way his chest tightens at Rin’s words, feels the recognition, there. It’s impossible, or it should be, how connected they are; how they can read each others’ body language and intentions through something as simple as eye contact. How they can understand how the other is feeling through the simplest of touches, or a breath wrapped delicately around a name.

It should be impossible.

Instead, it’s beautiful, and it’s real, and it’s theirs, and Haru wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rin hefts his bag up and over his head, letting it rest heavily on his shoulder, across his body. He lifts Haru’s bag, too, and approaches him with those same shining eyes, that same smile of the ages. Rin holds out the strap of his bag for him, waits for him to take it and secure it over his shoulder. And then he reaches out and Haru is struck by how  _truly_  that gesture belongs to Rin, so much so that he can barely swallow around the lump the size of his heart in his throat, choking him up with emotion, with love.

Reaching.

Rin, reaching for Haru through blinding white light, surrounded by soft pink petals glittering gold in the sunlight.

_Swimming to be free. Swimming for the team. Swimming for Rin. Swimming with Rin. Swimming because it’s not just swimming, has never been just swimming, and he hadn’t known that until, until—_

Rin.

_I want to swim with Rin!_

There has never been, and won’t ever be, anyone in the entire world who can reach Nanase Haruka the way that Matsuoka Rin can.

Haru slides his fingertips over Rin’s, lets their skin drag softly together, and then he intertwines their fingers until their palm-to palm, shoulder-to-shoulder, walking out of their apartment and into the world.

They’re headed for great things, Rin and Haru.

And together, they’ll reach them all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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